Leadership and orchestration of PED projects: an organizational perspective

Abstract

Innovative ways of implementing renewable and distributed energy systems in the urban environment are necessary to reach climate goals. The realization of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) builds upon the willing participation of multiple stakeholders from both the private and public sectors. Stakeholders contribute to PED initiatives with resources, competencies, and time and can take on various and changing roles; however, they usually have different powers, goals, and interests. Thus, the efforts of actors belonging to different organizations need to be coordinated to reach tangible results within a given timeframe. This article argues that the co-creation processes across multiple stakeholders in PED projects require better knowledge of leadership roles and functions in PED projects. We seek to identify the extent to which leadership in PED projects has been addressed in the existing literature on PEDs via searches with Google Scholar and Scopus. It is found that, although collective governance is regarded as a major challenge, there is a lack of research on how the processes and people in PED development projects are coordinated, including how information is exchanged, responsibilities are distributed, and decisions are taken. To further our knowledge of leadership roles in PED projects, we suggest drawing lessons from strategic management literature and theories and a preliminary framework for studying leadership roles and co-creation processes in PEDs is proposed for future research.